Would You Buy a Telenoid from Outer Space?

This is the year 2250. At the space railway station on planet Telvikos, the small robot Telenoid R1 is waiting for his departure to Earth. It is already nighttime on Telvikos, and Telenoid can be recognized from afar by his bright silicone skin. His form and face somehow resemble people from planet Earth, although he is only as tall as a puppet. "Telenoid R1, please float to Chronoportation," the loudspeakers at the space railway station say. The robot sighs briefly and packs in his long-term memory cell for the journey. Would you buy a Telenoid robot with a sci-fi background? According to research conducted at the Ars Electronica Futurelab , you're not only more likely to adopt a Telenoid, but also perceive it as more useful, when it's introduced with the story above. At the Ars Electronica museum in Austria, Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Telenoid, a telepresence robot, was presente...